(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Chicago Police Department’s use of “stop-and-frisk” tactics was criticized by community residents Wednesday as a federal court judge heard testimony on a proposal to give federal authorities more oversight in the matter.
Many of the witnesses on the Zoom court hearing had stories of how they or others were stopped by Chiacgo police offices and frisked.
One man talked about what he said was a new police practice of "stopping guys and handcuffing them together and patting them down."
He told U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, "I feel like that's a form of rape."
Another person who testified, Patricia Jjemba of the Cook County Public Defender's Office, said that despite the move away from stopping and frisking pedestrians over the past several years, Chicago police have continued the practice through traffic stops.
She says traffic stops have gone up in the past few years, with Black and Latino drivers most affected.
"CPD officers are in some cases sitting around in poor neighborhoods and waiting for Black and Latinx drivers to commit minor traffic violations and in other instances, outright fabricating violations just to pull these drivers over,” Jjemba said.
The Chicago Law Department says the police department has agreed to "reforms to investigatory stop practices (that) aim to build and strengthen relationships between CPD, its officers, and all members of the community."
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